


The First Annual Hogwarts Broomstick Race

by Sandel



Series: The 'Well Enough' 'Verse [9]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Broom Racing, Community: HPFT, F/M, Gen, Harry Potter Next Generation, Post - Deathly Hallows, Quidditch, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-05-14
Updated: 2013-05-14
Packaged: 2017-12-11 21:45:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,176
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/803586
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sandel/pseuds/Sandel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p></p><div class="center">
  <p>Tops, the daughter of Lee Jordan and Alicia Spinnet, doesn't make the Gryffindor Quidditch team, but she'll still get a chance to compete on a broom. Also, she has a crush on her best friend, James Potter. And her other best friend, Fred Weasley, is being a git.</p>
</div>
            </blockquote>





	The First Annual Hogwarts Broomstick Race

It was her third year as Hogwarts, and Metope “Tops” Jordan hadn’t made the Gryffindor Quidditch Team this year either. Her best friend, _the_ James Potter, had though. Tops hadn’t cried over it, but it had been close. Her dad suggested she should do what _he_ had done when _his_ best friends got onto the team but he didn’t, and become commentator instead, but she found the thought depressing. James’ idea was much better: he thought she should try and make the school hold a broomstick race. Tops couldn’t understand why she hadn’t thought about it herself; she was a more than decent Quidditch player, but she was an _amazing_ flyer. She often raced her friends around the school grounds, and dreamed of one day winning the Swedish “Kvastaloppet”.

Now she and James were sitting outside the Headmaster’s office. They were going to pitch the racing idea to Professor Flitwick, as reading up on the rules for school competition had informed them that they needed the Headmaster’s permission if the race were to go outside the school grounds. Just as Tops made a face at the gargoyle watching the entrance to the office, it jumped aside and Professor Flitwick appeared.

“Good evening, Miss Jordan”, the Headmaster said with a cordial smile, to Tops stunned yet still grimacing face, and James burst out laughing.

\---

“How did it go?” The question came from Fred Weasley, Tops’pre-Hogwarts best friend and one of James’ cousins. He was reading in a sofa in one of the inter-House study rooms. Tops made a happy jump into the seat beside him.

“He said yes! He thinks it’s a _wonderful_ idea. Said he might even join herself, haha. He and Broommaster Wood will help us make a route on Wednesday and then we can start practising!”

“ _Nice!_ Do you think enough people will join for you to let me escape the shame of entering and coming in last?”

“Bah, the only chance you’d come in last would be if only me and James joined.”

That was true. Fred was in fact great on a broom; he just didn’t enjoy sports very much. He hadn’t even gone to the Hufflepuff tryouts, even though he was in his second year now. Tops didn’t understand it. When he and Tops went out flying together he usually flew frustratingly slow, often diving down to investigate something that caught his interest. On a visit to her house a few years earlier he had even fallen into the nearby river when he leaned to far back on the broom to bask in the sun.

Tops smiled and was about to remind him of the memory, when the pale face of Rose Weasley peeked in through the door. They were more than a month into the term and she still looked as forlorn as she had done ever since Albus Potter ended up in Slytherin. To her surprise Tops saw Fred give Rose a welcoming nod, and she felt a rumbling heat rise in her chest. Would he let his needy little cousin interrupt their first real talk since the train?

“Anyway, I better go look for Bemma and tell her the news”, she said and rose, a little too quickly. She had no desire to watch Fred coddle poor little super smart “Rosie”.

\---

“Congratulations!” Bemma Gudgeon shouted from fourteen feet up in the air when Tops entered the Quidditch pitch. She was sneaking in forty minutes of evening practise for her three new players between the Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff official practice sessions. “You know I feel bad about not getting you on the team, so this is great news for me too. Now I don’t have to have nightmares about your tear-filled eyes anymore!”

Tops stuck out her tongue at the Quidditch Captain and waved to James.

“Hey, why don’t you come up and play, by the way?” Bemma added. “We need a third chaser to really put Davies’ keeping abilities to the test.”

Tops had, of course, brought her beloved Cleansweep Twenty-four, and now she soared up into the air to the sound of James’ whistling at her. The next half hour was pure bliss. She, James and Bemma made a great chasing team (though only Bemma and James scored). Gliding through the air Tops could find her way back to her ecstatic happiness over Professor Flitwick approving the race and forget about the bushy redhead who had no right to take James’ brother’s House placement even harder than James _himself_ did.

\---

But a forty minute sneak training can’t last forever, and way too soon seven yellow figures entered the pitch. Tops instinctively glanced at James, and true enough his eyes were locked at the Hufflepuff Seeker. But then they suddenly weren’t.

Instead of the casually playful “What’s up, Xu?” that Tops had learned to brace herself for, he yelled “ _Luce!_ ”.

“ _James!_ ” a short but muscular girl yelled back, in a perfect imitation of James’ surprised voice. Her familiar tone towards James and her short red hair told Tops she was yet another cousin.

“You made your team too!” James said as he dismounted his broom.                            

“Yeah”, answered Luce the cousin, “but I’m on as a Beater. Our Captain didn’t think the Keeper needed replacing, probably because he’s the Keeper himself…”

“Well, congratulations, anyway! It’s always an extra pleasure winning against family”, said James, laughing.

There the Hufflepuff Captain put an end to the conversation by grabbing James by the shoulders and leading him off the pitch while jokingly scolding him for taking up another team’s practice time.

When the Captain let James go the Xu girl was already thirty feet up in the air, far out of the “casual ‘Hello!’ range”, which made Tops smile against her will. To cover it up she asked about Luce.

“She’s one of the kids of my boring-est uncle, but you wouldn’t believe it if you knew her. She’s great! She’s the best Keeper I’ve ever played. I _must_ have at least mentioned her some time…”

He probably had, but that must have been before Tops started hanging by every word James said.

“Well, sorry for not keeping up with your ten thousand cousins. Speaking of, Rose came sulking when I was telling Fred about the race.”

“So _that’s_ why you showed up on the pitch when you said you wouldn’t. You shouldn’t be so harsh on her. She’s not great with new people, that’s why it shook her up so much to not have Al in her House” he said, and then, almost quietly, “I don’t get why people don’t like her.”

“She should be in Ravenclaw”, Tops muttered back, and then they walked in silence the rest of the way up to the common room. Tops knew they could both say a lot more on the subject, but James didn’t push it. Fred would have; he always wanted to understand people. Maybe Tops could stop the landslide between her and Fred if she could explain how she felt better, but right now she was glad James didn’t need her to.


End file.
